In answer to Nathan Robinson’s complaint that Senator Ted Cruz isn’t really that smart, I think the point is that he is a first-rate demagogue. When people admit that Cruz is highly intelligent, they do not mean that he is a highly original thinker or that he demonstrates some kind of moral or philosophical intelligence. I don’t think that they mean that he is a genius, although it’s certainly possible that he has a genius IQ score. I think the reason they feel the need to concede Cruz’s intelligence is that he should be given credit for being much more than meets the eye. By contrast, for example, Michele Bachmann should probably be given less credit than meets the eye.
Virtually anyone can come up with some crazy shit to say that will thrill the hearts of the far right. Steve King came up with drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes. Louie Gohmert came up with terror babies. There’s real talent in that kind of demagoguery, but it doesn’t demonstrate anything more than a tactical news cycle kind of thoughtfulness.
One knock on Cruz is that he has shown himself to be an inept strategist, but I have a couple of observations about this. One is that the government shutdown hurt the Republicans in the short term but also hurt the people’s confidence in the federal government in the long term. And the long term is Cruz’s play. Another is that Cruz may have made enemies of 90% or more of his fellow senators, but he’s also cowed his opponents into paralysis. His ideological game is furthered as long as the people continue to lose faith in government and he can exert enough influence to prevent a breakaway group of pragmatic senators from emerging to restore people’s confidence in government.
I’m not ready to argue that Cruz is exercising a plan that is going exactly according to script, but he knows what he is trying to do, which shows me that he’s smarter than most of his critics who can’t seem to discern anything more than a zookeeper who throws red-meat to the animals.
